


Crushing Daisies

by InsominiacArrest



Category: Steven Universe (Cartoon)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Industrial Revolution, Caretaking, Children, F/F, Fae & Fairies, Faustian Bargain
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-28
Updated: 2017-09-28
Packaged: 2019-01-06 15:20:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,753
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12213528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InsominiacArrest/pseuds/InsominiacArrest
Summary: Lapis made a deal with the fae years ago: her freedom for a favor when they called on herWhen they finally call she does not anticipate a child to take care of- or the fairy caretaker that comes with herFae lapidot AU





	Crushing Daisies

Lapis wrapped her shawl tighter around her shoulders as she walked, she could feel the temperature drop like a growing fire alarm- you knew you were getting closer the louder it got.

 

The air was a thin milky film and the heavy mist tasted cool and almost metallic in her mouth. Trees were old here, great elms and ashes that you couldn’t wrap your arms around, vines growing up stiff gray bark and hulking branches that dripped to the ground. The sun felt older here too, hidden behind the mist and winking at her dimly.

 

The path was nothing but a shamble of rocks, grass and vines grew over it easily in vivid clumps and she thought she had gotten lost several times, she thought she should just turn back several times. However, she didn’t want to know what would happen if she didn’t show.

 

The path dipped up and down and she couldn’t tell if she was gaining elevation or losing it, her sense of direction became nonsense that mostly translated into a hum in her nerves. That hum from her bones and fingertips was clear: run.

 

She sighs again, she couldn’t afford to run.

 

The trees opened up as the path become more of a memory than a thought and she could feel all of the hairs on her arm stand up. She set her jaw, she had to be close.

 

The only noise was the soft call of birds in the distance and her own heavy breathing, the trees stood aside to reveal a flat grassy area, the clearing she was looking for.

 

She knew it was the clearing because there was a sign written in stone at the very edge. It was a gray cracked stone that came unnaturally out of the earth, like a sore thumb or jagged thorn that pushed it’s way all the way up.

 

The letters pressed into the stone sat crookedly over it’s skin: Watch Your Children This Way.

 

The sign was as ominous as it was weather beaten, and it wasn’t English, there wasn’t any English out here. She was grateful her mother taught her basic celtic what felt like centuries ago, though of course, she wouldn’t be happy to know what Lapis was doing with it.

 

Lapis passes the stone without looking down, she had to get herself into the middle of the clearing, she tries not to look much of anywhere, she already felt cursed enough as it was.

 

Thin winding vines climb the ground and snag on her boots as she walks, the grass is a forest onto itself around her ankles, it feels like winter. She yanks her shawl tighter around her uselessly and squints her eyes out into the clearing.

 

She cringes and peers through the mist, the figure of distant deers is the only thing she sees, four legged animals that prop their ears up in her direction. 

 

They appeared a little too large even from where she was standing and the birds sounded acoustic in all the wrong ways.

 

Lapis hunches her shoulders, she is certain now that she isn’t meant to walk into places like this, no one was. 

 

She turns around in circles and keeps her head low, she takes a deep breath, it was too late now.

 

“Hello?” She asks softly to the wind and it feels like the word itself is soaked up by the fog. Trees rustle around her at the edges of the clearing and her heart sinks.

 

Lapis shifts from side to side, “I’m here.” She announces weakly, “I’ve come.”   
  


She didn’t know what she expected, but the moment passes for a very long heartbeat. The clearing rustles, the deers disappear.

 

Lapis’s breath catches in her throat, something in the air begins to shimmer and dance, her eyes went wide as a series of colors pops in the air above her from nowhere.

 

A bright flashing ball of little yellows and greens that slowly became less dreamlike. It was saturated in the mist and blinked in the air in front of her.

 

She gasps softly but doesn’t have time, a body slowly emerges like an image in a painting you slowly began to recognize: a body, a head, a hand.

 

The light drags something out into a complete figure. Lapis steps backward and tries not to fall over as she stumbles in the undergrowth, the light dims.

 

A little woman had green skin, pointy blonde hair and a pair of large yellow iridescent wings that stood stiffly off her body. The wings had visible veins like a network of hemlines or branches, they were nearly the size of the creature's body.

 

She wasn’t small, not like the lights Lapis first talked to the first time, but she wasn’t big either. Lapis looks at the five foot woman before her, barefoot and in a form-fitting green dress that stopped at her thighs. Lapis gulped.

 

She had brought herself here.

 

The fae glowed softly as she landed on the ground and flapped her yellow webbed wings softly before lifting her petite pinched face up. She frowned at her. Lapis held herself still as the creature looked her up and down like Lapis wasn’t a good four inches taller than her.

The little creature wet her lips, “is that you?” She blinked, “Lapis Lazuli?”

 

Lapis straightened herself and flattened out her wrinkled skirt, she took a deep breath, “I’ve come to your clearing like you asked.”   
  
She nodded shortly and sniffs, “you’ve grown.” She says dryly, Lapis scowls slightly, she must have been one of the green or yellow lights she talked to after all.

 

“I’ve eaten.” She says shortly back. They stare at each other in a bizarre impasse, Lapis wasn’t exactly sure what to do with herself. In normal circumstances her mom would say to hide her veins and run as fast as her legs would carry her.

 

Lapis takes a deep breath, “I appreciate the fae’s help, what you’ve done for me.” She recites the words, “I have come to return the favor.” She didn’t really have a choice after they dropped the celtic-engraved stone on her pillow.

 

The little woman gave her a flat look, “and?” She tapped her foot, Lapis raised an eyebrow.

 

“Well,” she huffs, “what do you want me to do?” She hopes it has nothing to do with sheep or force feeding people.

 

The fairy shook her head, “you can start again with: thank you, you’re shining gifted floral benevolence, I know as unworthy humans we don’t deserve your assistance, but I offer myself up. To you.”   
  


“Come again?” Lapis says tightly as the fae looked feline with her curling smile.

 

“I offer myself up to you,” the fairy articulates, “my savior.”    
  
The words snap out of her mouth, “Sod off.”

 

Lapis’s mistress always said she would talk her way into a coffin one day.

 

The fairy glowed softly, her yellow flashing into an angry green but she parted her lips in something between a smile and a snarl, “ah, yes, you  _ were _ the girl who asked for her freedom all those years ago.”   
  
Lapis cocked an eyebrow up, “what of it?” She tugged on her shawl, “I came to your godforsaken woods, here I am, soul and all. In your misty dung hole, please, your floralness,” she curtsies tightly and met her eye, “I’ll do what you ask, be on with it.”   
  


She had already dug her hole with the fae, the least they could do was not toy with her.

 

The fairy blew air out of her nose, “I see your mother didn’t teach you to value your life.” She flashes her sharp little needle teeth at her, “but luckily for you, that insolence is what I came for.”   
  
Lapis sets her mouth into a straight line, “You came to the right place then.”   
  
She raises her eyebrows, testing her almost, “but did you?”

 

Lapis clenches her hands, “I know what I bargained for.”   
  
“You should,” The fairy nods curtly back at her, “and you will fulfill that bargain if you don’t want it reversed.” Lapis’s blood runs cold and every muscle in her body clenches, the creature continues, “remember that after I give you the instructions.”   
  


Lapis pursed her lips and waited, she sees the flecks of gold in the faes eyes that watched her with an unearthly steadiness, “I’m ready.” She finally says as the gold eyes bore into her.

 

She knew what she was getting into three years ago.

 

The fairy took a deep breath in through her nose, “I’ll be back. Don’t go anywhere, and if you see lights that aren’t mine.” Lapis raised an eyebrow and Peridot leaned forward, “run.”

 

That was one way to make Lapis forget about the cramping in her leg and any thoughts of the warm pudding she had at home.

 

She holds herself still as the fairy flashes again in a yellow and green flare, head and limbs and torso shrinking into a bouncing ball until it blinks out of existence.

 

The clearing is just an empty misted glade again, in the distance, she sees the deer once more. They linger closer and the breeze tugs at her ankles like a feeble hand.

 

She hears the silver sound of birds and Lapis feels her skin crawl.

 

She shrinks low to the ground, mumbling a nursery rhyme to herself into the grass, “the dead may walk, the world may chill, the fae are here to turn or ill, watch your step and watch your kin. The dead may walk but the fairies…”

 

A singular musical pop appears in the air above her again, Lapis jumps and has to hold her breath as the lights pull some shapeless form into being. Lapis sees two now.

 

She bites the inside of her cheek and forces her knees to lift her back up and set her stance, she waits. The process is quicker now and she sees the fairy’s narrow chest heaving as she places herself back on the ground alongside a little figure in a heavy red cloak.

 

“Quick,” the fairy spits, she was holding the hand of another little creature, Lapis blinks. It was smaller than the fairy. “Get over here.”   
  
Lapis shakes herself and manages to trot over to the fairy’s outstretched hand, “back to your village, now.” 

 

Lapis holds her breath and lurches forward, “are we going to…?”   
  
“Walk,” The fairy looks over both shoulders, “and quickly.”

 

Lapis only has a chance to nod and the fairy pushes her out the way she came, Lapis tries to peer under the hood of who the fairy was with, but the shadows were deep.

 

“Do you need me to get you somewhere?” She whispers hopefully, that would be an easy enough favor.

 

The fairy’s sharp eyes almost sting as they whip in her direction, “Walk ahead of us and don’t look back. I’ll talk when we’re closer to your road.”   
  
Lapis scowls but she has no choice but to obey.

 

Lapis knew the world was divided into the powerful and the weak, and at that moment the unearthly beings were the only ones to give her any power in the first place.

 

She looks ahead and makes the stumbling chilly journey back out of the ancient woods that creaked and moaned around her. The sun slowly became a more cheerful summer yellow and Lapis is finally able to breath more easily.

 

Once the hairs on the back of her neck lay back down, she pointedly stops in place, “Ahem.” Lapis clears her throat.

 

She waits another minute as the footsteps behind her catch up and Lapis can finally glance to her side, “I don’t suppose you want other humans seeing you right now.”   
  
The little woman considered her for a moment, she then snorts, “They couldn’t if they wanted to.”   
  
Lapis sighs and crosses her arms, “Please,” she gestures to the figure, “go on.”   
  
The creature shakes her head and puts one hand up, “I expect your full compliance in this.”   
  
Lapis just takes a step forward, “I already bloody agreed, go on.”   
  
“Don’t curse around her,” She was frowning in her direction and then turning toward the cloak. Lapis raised an eyebrow as the fairy knelt down.

 

The fairy took a little hand in hers, a child-sized hand that was tinted slowly orange in the light- or perhaps that was it’s natural hue.

 

“Pumpkin,” she said in a gentle voice Lapis wouldn’t have expected, the child, she’d guessed it was a child reached out a second little hand. The fairy pushed the kid’s hood back and a mess of orange hair spilled out in fine springing ringlets, a child. Peridot turns the girl around and points, “That is Lapis. Her name is Lapis Lazuli.”   
  
A pair of grass green eyes turn to Lapis with an immense weight, open and vast. She had round cheeks and little indents that Lapis guessed would dimple like pits of sunshine. Her bangs were windswept with the rest of her dark orange hair rolling across lightly tinted skin.

 

Pumpkin glanced back to the fairy, “Peridot?” Is was a question.

 

“She’ll be taking care of you.” Peridot, this fairy, said with the same gentleness.

 

Lapis almost balked, “I’ll be what?”

 

Pumpkin frowned in wide-eyed confusion, “she isn’t a fairy.” She stated openly, “though,” she blinks back, “she’s called a Lapis?”   
  
Peridot nods, “yes, we gave her a new name when we brought her here.” Peridot smiled, “and no, she isn’t a fairy.” She tapped Pumpkin on the nose and the little almost giggled, “but neither are you.”   
  
Lapis watches this exchanged with a measured amount of restraint, but there was a few things she needed to know right then. She cleared her throat, “You might have told me some of this before.”   
  
Peridot took a moment to look irritatedly back up at her, “you’ll know things when you need to know them.”   
  
Lapis’s eyebrow twitched, “What do I need to know then?”   
  
Peridot turned Pumpkin around slowly, “Lapis,” she resumed her clipped tone, “this is Pumpkin.”   
  
Lapis has a moment where her insides swirl, “Oh.” Lapis didn’t know much about kids. She kneels down slowly and tries to put her hand out, “Hi there.”   
  
She waits for the kid to take her hand, but she just looks at it. “Right.” Maybe trying to shake a five year old’s hand wasn’t Step One.

 

She could see Peridot visibly roll her eyes, “anyway,” she gave Lapis a look, “I will leave as many instructions as I can.” 

 

Lapis purses her lips, “so what? She gonna… stay with me for a bit?”   
  
Peridot shook her head, “Pumpkin will reside with you, human, until I say otherwise.”   
  
“What?!” Lapis hisses, hoping the child wasn’t watching too closely. “I can’t...I’ve never raised  _ anyone _ .” Much less a fairy-ward with orange skin.

 

Peridot stood back up, still holding Pumpkin’s hand firmly, “I didn’t choose you for maternity, trust me.”   
  


Lapis’s eyes went wide, “why did you choose me?” She whispers it.

 

Peridot meets her eyes steadily, she tilts her head to the side, Lapis opens her mouth but Peridot leaned down and heft the child into her arms. Pumpkin wrapped her arms around Peridot’s neck and Peridot said something too quiet for Lapis to catch into her ear.

 

The girl’s eyes start to swim, Peridot steps forward, “Take her back your village.” Peridot slowly detached the child and lifted her toward Lapis.

 

“Peridot,” Lapis searches the fairy’s face, she had started to glow.

 

“Put her in your house,” Peridot continues. “Don’t answer to anyone unless you trust them.” She frowns, “and if they don’t ask to be let in.”

 

“I don’t und-”   
  
She hands Pumpkin to Lapis as the fairy wavers and Lapis fumbles to support the five year old and cradle her haphazardly in her arms.

 

“Take care of her,” Peridot’s gold-speckled eyes flashed as the rest of her disappeared. “I’ll be back. I’ll know if you fail the bargain.”   
  
“But-”   
  
“Peridot!” Pumpkin was first and reached her dimpled hand out into the empty space where she had been.

 

Lapis’s mouth was left open, a five year old was left sniffling and struggling in her arms. Lapis takes a moment to look at the air in front of them blankly.

 

The child wails quietly and Lapis remembers herself enough to take the cuff of her sleeve and wipe away some of the big fat rolling tears.

 

Of all the debts Lapis thought she would pay to the fae, this was not one of them.


End file.
